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Ms Adams said today that she would wait for a select committee to consider the petition before any decision was made about an apology.

She warned that reversing convictions would be a hugely complicated task.

"It's a very difficult process actually because the way the law is crafted it didn't distinguish between consensual and non-consensual acts.

"A lot of the offences are still offences under today's law around under-age children and the like, so it's not as simple as a blanket approach.

"What we've identified is that it would take quite a detailed process if it was even possible to go through case-by-case and work through whether each offence in each case would still be illegal under today's law."

The total number of convictions is not known, though Mr Hague said it was believed to be "in the hundreds".